-
Historic Heat in North America Turns Winter to Summer
A huge, lingering ridge of high pressure over the eastern half of the United States brought summer-like temperatures to North America in March 2012. The warm weather shattered records across the central and eastern United States and much of Canada.
The unseasonable warmth broke temperature records in more than 1,054 locations between March 13–19, as well daily lows in 627 locations, according to Hamweather. Cities as geographically diverse as Chicago, Des Moines, Traverse City (Michigan), Myrtle Beach, Madison (Wisconsin), Atlantic City, New York City, and Duluth, (Minnesota) all broke records for high temperatures in recent days.
Posted on March 21, 2012
-
A map of the United States, drawn in the style of Lord of the Rings
Have you ever wondered what a map of the continental U.S. might look like if it were subjected to the stylings of Christopher and J.R.R. Tolkein, who, together, illustrated the world encompassing LotR? Wonder no more; redditor Jvlivs has made Middle Earth-ified America a reality.
Posted on March 12, 2012 with 25 notes
-
1 Year Later, What Does Fukushima Mean for Nuclear Research?
How does a Canadian-American professor of uranium mineralogy living in the unassuming American Midwest respond to the one-year anniversary of Fukushima? He writes a calculated review of what’s known and not known about the behavior of nuclear fuel after a reactor accident. Then he goes back to writing grant proposals, reviewing journal articles and fielding questions from graduate students. How do I know this? He’s my boss.
Posted on March 12, 2012 with 6 notes
-
Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food Compass MapThe map shows many USDA-supported projects and programs related to local and regional food systems for the years 2009-2011. You may move the slide bar to zoom into map areas such as states, counties, communities, etc., and then use your mouse cursor to select a map pin symbol to view more information about a project.
To obtain the Glossary descriptions of USDA data sets and download data as needed, click here, and for more information on using the Compass Map, click here (PDF, 704K).
Posted on March 1, 2012 with 4 notes
-
How well do you sleep? It may depend on where you live
Researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania have put sleeplessness on the map — literally. The research team, analyzing nationwide data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), has produced the first state-by-state sleep maps for the United States, revealing that residents of Southern states suffer from the most sleep disturbances and daytime fatigue, while residents on the West Coast report the least amount of problems. The results are published online in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine.
Posted on February 27, 2012
-
Conservative American states are less diverse, less educated, less affluent and more religious than Liberal American states
Even with the president’s approval rating showing signs of life and the Republicans busily bashing themselves over the head — “one is a practicing polygamist and he’s not even the Mormon,” retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor recently quipped about her party’s two frontrunners — America continues to track right, according to polling data released by the Gallup Organization last week.
Americans at this political moment are significantly more likely to identify as conservative than as liberal: conservatives outnumber liberals by nearly two to one. Forty percent identify as conservative, 36 percent as moderate, and 21 percent liberal.
Posted on February 14, 2012 with 17 notes
-
The State Of Gay Marriage: The Battle For Marriage Equality Across the Nation
The Ninth Circuit court of appeals on Tuesday declared California’s Proposition 8, which bans gay marriage in the state, unconstitutional. The decision sets up what is almost certain to be a Supreme Court ruling on the matter. Of course California isn’t the only state wrestling with the issue of marriage equality. Here’s a look at where things stand across the country.Posted on February 9, 2012 with 4 notes
-
Human Risk of Infection with Borrelia burgdorferi, the Lyme Disease Agent, in Eastern United States
The geographic pattern of human risk for infection with Borrelia burgdorferi sensu stricto, the tick-borne pathogen that causes Lyme disease, was mapped for the eastern United States. The map is based on standardized field sampling in 304 sites of the density of Ixodes scapularis host-seeking nymphs infected with B. burgdorferi, which is closely associated with human infection risk. Risk factors for the presence and density of infected nymphs were used to model a continuous 8 km×8 km resolution predictive surface of human risk, including confidence intervals for each pixel. Discontinuous Lyme disease risk foci were identified in the Northeast and upper Midwest, with a transitional zone including sites with uninfected I. scapularis populations. Given frequent under- and over-diagnoses of Lyme disease, this map could act as a tool to guide surveillance, control, and prevention efforts and act as a baseline for studies tracking the spread of infection.
Posted on February 7, 2012 with 2 notes
-
New Interactive Map Reveals U.S. Tidal Energy Resources
Tidal energy — a renewable, predictable resource available up and down America’s coastlines — holds great promise for clean energy generation. And now, a first of its kind database gives researchers deeper insight into the potential of this energy resource for the United States.
Posted on February 7, 2012 with 2 notes
-
Mapping the earmarks
Across the nation, 33 members of Congress have helped direct more than $300 million in earmarks to dozens of public projects for work in close proximity to commercial and residential real estate owned by the lawmakers or their family members.
Posted on February 7, 2012 with 2 notes
-
Map of average US residential electricity price by utility service territory.
Posted on February 6, 2012 with 10 notes
-
A snapshot of USA every ten years, beginning in 1790 (the first census). Showing the states that were added between census’s. Also showing the population center change with every census.
In 1790 Virginia included Virginia, West Virginia and Kentucky.
The population center crosses the Mississippi River in 1980.
The gif works on my computer but not my iPhone. I’ll try to figure that out.
(Source: mapsrfun, via fuckyeahcartography)
Posted on February 4, 2012 via geo-cake with 80 notes
-
The State of State Science Standards
from Greg Laden (@gregladen)
The vast majority of American public school students are proficient (sic) [probably meant deficient] in the level of science learning expected for their age group. The Thomas B. Fordham Institute has issued “The State of Science Standards 2012” as part of an effort to assess the causes of this dismal state of affairs.
Posted on January 31, 2012 with 9 notes
-
Map of scientific collaboration between researchers
In the spirit of the well-circulated Facebook friendship map by Paul Butler, research analyst Olivier Beauchesne at Science-Metrix examines scientific collaboration around the world from 2005 to 2009:
I was very impressed by the friendship map made by Facebook intern, Paul Buffer [sp] and I realized that I had access to a similar dataset. Instead of a database of friendship data, I had access to a database of scientific collaboration.
From an extensive database of academic citations:
I extracted and aggregated scientific collaboration between cities all over the world. For example, if a UCLA researcher published a paper with a colleague at the University of Tokyo, this would create an instance of collaboration between Los Angeles and Tokyo.
After that, Beauchesne used a similar mapping scheme that Butler used, and behold the results above. The brighter the lines, the more collaborations between a pair of universities.
There doesn’t seem to be much going on in places outside of the United States and Europe, but I wonder if that’s because of a limited dataset or really because there’s little collaboration in those areas. I suspect the former. Still very cool though.
Posted on January 29, 2012 with 4 notes
-
Posted on January 11, 2012 with 3 notes
Comparing and contrasting information mapped to the continental United States of America, hence Maps Of the Continental United States (MOCUS).
Feel free to send me links to other interesting MOCUSes.
Urban dictionary:
Mocus - Adj. A state of confusion, often referring to the state of mind brought about by detoxification. Derived from "mostly out of focus."
You need to forgive his blithering; he just got out of detox so he's really mocus.
